The US Hamster Wheel

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Re: The US Hamster Wheel

#4761 Post by Boac » Fri May 17, 2019 8:21 pm

It's a bit more complex simple than that, Mr. Ben There. The Chump lied, didn't he? Go on, admit it. You know you don't want to =))

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Re: The US Hamster Wheel

#4762 Post by BenThere » Fri May 17, 2019 8:25 pm

I admire that, John Hill. I, too, like to learn something every day, but I enjoy choosing my own homework.

What's your Trump lie count up to now, Boac? Did you reduce or adjust it after the Mueller report came out?

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Re: The US Hamster Wheel

#4763 Post by prospector » Fri May 17, 2019 10:02 pm

Need a lot more adjusting after the AG Barr report is tabled, and the reports from the people AG Barr has hired. Lot more open minded then the lot Mueller hired.

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Re: The US Hamster Wheel

#4764 Post by G-CPTN » Fri May 17, 2019 10:41 pm

In the UK, AG Barr is the producer of Irn Bru

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Re: The US Hamster Wheel

#4765 Post by Undried Plum » Sat May 18, 2019 9:30 am

BenThere wrote:
Fri May 17, 2019 8:18 pm
Demand for the Chinese product goes down with tariffs on Chinese products as American buyers seek alternatives. At the same time demand for American made products goes up as they are more able to compete.
You really ought to apply for a refund for that mail order diploma, Ben.

Trade protectionism never makes domestic companies more competitive. Never. Instead it makes them flabby, lazy and inefficient.

That's not at all limited to the dying Imperial America. In the 1950s, 60s and 70s, Britain car manufacturers produced crap like the Morris Marina, and the Austin Allegro and the Princess and the Maxi. That was only possible because there were huge tariffs on imported cars. That all ended with the Common Market and the protected companies went bust or were denationalised. British steel was also trade-protected during those decades. The result was their product was over-priced and of crap quality and usually delivered late. The same was true of British shipbuilding.

American manufacturers of white goods, for example, are not made more competitive by massively increasing their input costs for components and raw materials.

Why do you think iPhones and iPads aren't made in Kentucky or Arkansas or any of America's imperial possessions such as Puerto Rico, Ben? Think about that.

Forget about "communist" China. Communism served them well in the 1940s when they needed to bind scores of ethnic groups, who spoke a couple of hundred different languages, together under one flag. They dragged their country out of a state of near-perpetual mass starvation into a modern state which will quite soon have more millionaires and billionaires than The Empire. Ever since Deng Xiau Ping said 40 years ago that it's cool to get rich, the Chinese have been doing exactly that.

They have the advantage that they haven't pissed trillions of dollars worth of assets into the bottomless pit of a monstrously over-bloated military the way The Empire has. Instead, they invested in education and healthcare of their greatest resource: their people.

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Re: The US Hamster Wheel

#4766 Post by Undried Plum » Sat May 18, 2019 10:05 am

G-CPTN wrote:
Fri May 17, 2019 10:41 pm
In the UK, AG Barr is the producer of Irn Bru
In the 1980s they did a wonderful pisstake of the Murricane way of selling fizzy drinks.



The Glescae Kiss was, of course, aimed at the Scottish market. =))

They also did a pisstake of The Snowman Crimbo movie. The scenery is well known to Scottish people (and some grockles).



And another, also with a hard edge:
(and a bit of aviation content)

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Re: The US Hamster Wheel

#4767 Post by BenThere » Sun May 19, 2019 3:00 pm

That's not at all limited to the dying Imperial America.
That theme has been expressed often since 1776, but so far has yet to play out, much to your chagrin.

In the current instance, American factories are coming back to life at a healthy pace. US Steel Corp just annonunced a $Billion+ refurbishment of a shut down steel mill in Pennsylvania, totally because of new tariffs. That's real jobs and real people working.

I've posted before that I would rather buy an American made product at a premium than a foreign-made knockoff or lower quality product. I'm not the only American who feels this way; there are tens of millions of us, and we have the money and inclination to help rebuild our manufacturing base.

May I remind you also that a huge chunk of the world's most respected universities are American? Why is that? I'll tell you since you were so courteous to do my homework - it's because America has the technology, investment, quality of life expectations, and infrastructure to attract the best minds in the world to make us even better.

Finally, trade protection has worked, witness the automobile industries of Germany and Japan post-WWII.

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Re: The US Hamster Wheel

#4768 Post by Undried Plum » Mon May 20, 2019 2:26 pm

A very well informed article.

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Re: The US Hamster Wheel

#4769 Post by Fox3WheresMyBanana » Mon May 20, 2019 7:14 pm

I agree, thanks for posting. I would like to dig a little deeper into a couple of the points.
The author skips over why the US has the World's reserve currency. Goodness knows, practically everybody has been trying to change that, for the last decade at least. Many argue that the US uses its other muscles to punish anyone who tries it, but everyone acting outside the US's influence, from drug lords to Chinese nomenklatura, stuff their money into US dollars also (sometimes via CAD, as with Vancouver real estate). So, I think it comes down to the US being the biggest country financially, or the most likely to survive a depression, or the most reliable (i.e. politically/judicially stable, with respect to the integrity of the financial system), or some combination thereof. If you had $5 million plus to stash away, which currency would you put it in? Most countries' governments can get a judge to steal your entire stash overnight, Russia and China being prime examples; the USA doesn't do that. It might freeze it, but Obama still gave Iran its cash back, by the planeload, when the freeze ended. Furthermore, nothing in any other currency controller's actions in the last decade has challenged that. The US may be screwing up, but it's doing it less quickly than everybody else. And the underlying reason for most of those reasons is that the US is at least less worse than everyone else at encouraging people to achieve their dreams - the richer people at least.
I do not think the tying in of worldwide credit cycles is unwitting. I think those who have been doing it are fully aware of the consequences, but it is unavoidable to achieve their short term aims. One of the second level consequences, and the one of most importance, is that a substantial crash in a couple of major players' or several minor players' credit economies will trigger a worldwide financial meltdown. The article concentrates on the Hong Kong property market. Personally, I don't think that's a big factor. Deutsche Bank, for example, is much more important. As the situation worsens and more financial and political resources are invested to keep the worldwide credit cycle going, cross-support increases, and it makes the entire structure more susceptible to smaller and smaller disturbances. It's a game of Jenga, and it's almost at the stage where you close your eyes just before you place the next block.

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Re: The US Hamster Wheel

#4770 Post by Undried Plum » Mon May 20, 2019 8:24 pm

Fox3WheresMyBanana wrote:
Mon May 20, 2019 7:14 pm

The author skips over why the US has the World's reserve currency. Goodness knows, practically everybody has been trying to change that, for the last decade at least. Many argue that the US uses its other muscles to punish anyone who tries it, but everyone acting outside the US's influence, from drug lords to Chinese nomenklatura, stuff their money into US dollars also (sometimes via CAD, as with Vancouver real estate). So, I think it comes down to the US being the biggest country financially, or the most likely to survive a depression, or the most reliable (i.e. politically/judicially stable, with respect to the integrity of the financial system), or some combination thereof.
I'll tackle that, if I may.

The dollar became the reserve currency in two stages. The first was the Bretton Woods deal. In those days the dollar had some actual substance as it was backed by gold. That came to an end when Nixon ran out of money to pay for The American War in SouthEast Asia. He took the dollar off the gold standard so that he could print as much money as he wanted for his military and social programmes. The Federal Reserve bank(s) rubbed their hands with glee as it gave them incredibly easy money as they could create money simply by getting people into debt and secure an endless supply of interest payments and other obligations. Fiat currency, in a word. Worthless ****, but much in demand.

The second stage was the creation of what became known as the petro-dollar. That traitorous bastard St John Philby, whose son Kim was no better, was our man in Arabia. He sold Britain down the metaphorical river and gave American oil companies the oil rights in Saudi. The magic kingdom simply couldn't absorb the oil wealth domestically, so 'parked' their new-found riches in dollars. It was made illegal to buy or sell oil in any currency other than dollars, world-wide, so that currency had a strangle-hold on the majority of world trade in the planet's most vital commodity. Those dollars were lent to Murricanes who otherwise couldn't afford to buy stuff.

One local potentate tried to accept payment in real money, ie gold, and became a marked man. His name was Saddam Hussein. Another threatened to do the same. His name was Gaddaffi. The Iranians have recently let it be known that they'd like to sell their oil for a mixture of gold and SDRs. The Empire simply cannot tolerate, or even survive that. One ended up, down actually, on a quite short rope. The other got a bayonet up his arse. The Iranians are unfinished business, as are the Syrians who also want to accept proper money for their oil instead of poxy dollars

There is a third aspect. The worlds greatest producer of manufactured goods sells to the world's greatest consumer of manufactured goods. China has no choice other than to accept payment in dollars and cannot absorb that wealth domestically, at least not in dollar form. China is therefore obliged to repatriate those dollars to the US in the form of T-bonds. That's a double-edged trap for both parties. If China sells a significant proportion of its Trillion dollars of USG bonds, the price would crash and render the remaining proportion worthless and would bankrupt their biggest customer. Chinkys are the jews of Asia. They are natural born businessmen and they ain't stoopid enough to do that.

There is therefore a bit of a wary sword-dance going on right now. In the meantime, there really isn't yet a suitable instant replacement for the Bretton Woods dollar.

Please forgive typos in this stream of consciousness. I'm a rotten typist and I've emptied a glass of "Seaside" Embra Gin & tonic. It's really rather good (the gin, not the writing).

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Re: The US Hamster Wheel

#4771 Post by Fox3WheresMyBanana » Mon May 20, 2019 8:56 pm

Thank you for the summary, though I was aware of how it became the reserve currency. So, it's the major trade exchange between the US and China, but why is that a factor for, say, the EU?
Do you think the current trade war is fundamentally being driven by China's attempt to diversify its markets (Belt and Road, so this is maybe the US's last change to keep hegemony), or being used by the US to destroy communism (which is what I thought would have happened sooner after the Cold War ended, but other US Presidents were not that way inclined), or simply maintaining hegemony for its own sake, or something else?

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Re: The US Hamster Wheel

#4772 Post by Undried Plum » Mon May 20, 2019 9:26 pm

Fox3WheresMyBanana wrote:
Mon May 20, 2019 8:56 pm
how it became the reserve currency. So, it's the major trade exchange between the US and China, but why is that a factor for, say, the EU?
It's a massive, quite determinate actually, factor in Europe because Bretton Woods was all about Europe. Europe all the way to the Urals and a bit beyond.

Between US & China, it's about the dollar because the US only pays its bills to China in a currency that it can print for free in unlimited quantities.
Do you think the current trade war is fundamentally being driven by China's attempt to diversify its markets (Belt and Road, so this is maybe the US's last change to keep hegemony), or being used by the US to destroy communism (which is what I thought would have happened sooner after the Cold War ended, but other US Presidents were not that way inclined), or simply maintaining hegemony for its own sake, or something else?
"Communism" is used by both sides, for pretty much the same reason. It's a brain-deadening/mind-numbing slogan.

Hegemony? For sure. No doubt about that. It's what a fascist Empire is based on. The Chinese are pig-sick of that ****. They had a belly-full of that with the Japs and they know what the Murricanes are all about.

The Brits are contemptible in their eyes because the only 'reason' for the capture of the stinky harbour was the opium "war".

Britain really isn't significant to China. Britain's not a threat to China. That why they laughed so much when that little prick 'threatened' to send his Blaircraft carriers to the South China Sea to re-assert Britain's authority there.

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Re: The US Hamster Wheel

#4773 Post by Fox3WheresMyBanana » Mon May 20, 2019 10:12 pm

I was not aware Britain had been dumb enough to make such a 'threat' - what was it, comedy hour? ;)))

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Re: The US Hamster Wheel

#4774 Post by prospector » Tue May 21, 2019 9:56 am


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Re: The US Hamster Wheel

#4775 Post by prospector » Tue May 21, 2019 9:59 am


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Re: The US Hamster Wheel

#4776 Post by prospector » Tue May 21, 2019 10:40 pm

And more from "Big Lizzy" What a threat, An Aircraft carrier with no aircraft.

https://www.rt.com/news/459929-queen-el ... aign=Email

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Re: The US Hamster Wheel

#4777 Post by Woody » Sat May 25, 2019 11:48 am

Is there a limit to the number of emergencies that he can declare?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-48404923
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Re: The US Hamster Wheel

#4778 Post by BenThere » Tue May 28, 2019 1:10 am

No, we've had hundreds of emergencies declared post-WWII.

Americans are observing Memorial Day, the last Monday in May, to remember our fallen soldiers. Memorial Day, Fourth of July, and Veterans day (11 November) are America's most meaningful holiday observations to me.

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Re: The US Hamster Wheel

#4779 Post by Undried Plum » Tue May 28, 2019 7:29 am

America's militarism is a direct consequence of being a fascist state.

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Re: The US Hamster Wheel

#4780 Post by John Hill » Tue May 28, 2019 8:29 am

I don't know if fascism leads to militarism or the other way around?
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